<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Beck is Back? by Decoder13</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27127402">Beck is Back?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decoder13/pseuds/Decoder13'>Decoder13</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Battle for London in the Air (Roleplay)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Immortal Illuminati AU, Thaddeus why</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:09:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,733</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27127402</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decoder13/pseuds/Decoder13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lord Thaddeus Beck fails at everything, including staying dead.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Beck is Back?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It probably said something about her personality or her experience, or both, that Cordelia had a habit of glancing down at the lock of her apartment door before sliding her own key in.  She’d picked enough locks in her time to know what the thin scratches and bright, raw knicks in the metal tended to look like afterwards.  Perhaps it was paranoid of her to check for those every time.  But there’d been a few incidents over the years, and even before then, she’d been checking locks just in case ever since she’d learned what to look for.  It was a parlor trick she did to impress herself.</p><p>Whoever had picked her lock today had been the first to break into this particular apartment since she’d moved in, and they’d done a particularly sloppy job.  Not a “competent fellow in a hurry” or “young novice still learning the ropes” kind of sloppy, either.  Very much a “learned this from YouTube this morning” kind of sloppy.  They’d tried bumping it after practicing maybe three times and succeeding one or two of them.  It was rather impressive they’d gotten it to work at all out in the field.  There were irregular gouges and patches of bright metal all about the keyhole in all the wrong places.</p><p>Cordelia sighed.  These sorts of things were always a special hassle for someone like her.  </p><p>Not that she was one of those people who plastered her walls with paintings and photographs of herself and her famous friends from across the ages, or who left a century’s worth of fake IDs in an unlocked and poorly organized drawer.  As she liked to put it, she wasn’t a “plot-point immortal.”  Any casual searcher or average burglar wouldn’t find a real-life inciting incident of a paranormal romance novel sitting on a shelf of an old curio cabinet or resting upon her desk.</p><p>But if someone knew what they were looking for?  There were still one or two things to worry about, and not many people she’d feel comfortable contacting for immediate help or advice.  It was preferable not to get authorities involved.  She would have called Andrew and might have even waited for him if they were together this time, or if they were even acquaintances this time, but they weren’t.  She was only vaguely aware of where he even was at the moment, and that was mostly because she had friends in admin.  And she preferred not to bother HR if she didn’t have to. Irving was a lovely person, but he had enough on his plate as it was, and she really preferred not to call on him if she didn’t have to.</p><p>She glanced down the hall to her left, then to her right.  There was no one else out here right now, but by this time on a weekday evening, plenty of people would be in their apartments.  The apartment building was nothing fancy, true, but it was in a historical and somewhat trendy part of town and had a good reputation.  Lots of families and young professionals, a few graduate students who didn’t shy away from a commute.  Someone surely would have noticed if anyone was getting up to shady business in the hall.  Perhaps she could check at the desk, see if there was anyone other than residents or regulars who’d come to visit today.  Then again, that might take a little too much time - more than she’d like to waste.</p><p>There really wasn’t a way to tell if anyone else was in her apartment right now, besides pressing an ear to the door and listening.  She didn’t hear anything.  And there didn’t seem to be any light coming out from under the door.</p><p>Cordelia took five measured seconds to close her eyes and take a deep breath.  Better that she take a first look herself.  And, should anyone still be in there?  Well, she’d handled plenty of things on her own in her time. She wouldn’t get the kind of assignments she did if her bosses didn’t know that, and if they didn’t know that her first instinct was always to handle things herself.</p><p>She placed a hand on the knob and turned it as slowly as she could.  It was still unlocked, which wasn’t the best sign.  Still, she’d committed to going in.  At least she’d been in this apartment for a few years now.  She knew how the door sounded and where the floors creaked and how to move about quietly enough.</p><p>It was a lovely summer night, about 8 p.m., and her curtains were light enough that some of the sunshine made it through into the hybrid living room and kitchen.  The natural illumination was helpful.  Turning on a light immediately would have been a bit too much of a risk.  Nothing obvious had happened in response to her opening the door, and nothing much seemed amiss at first glance.</p><p>At second glance, though, what was amiss faded into view.</p><p>On the counter separating the kitchen from the living room area was a bottle of some kind of non-rotgut spirit.  She couldn’t make out the details of the label in the dim light, but the shape of the bottle and the sheen of the packaging looked nice.  There were two wine glasses next to it that definitely weren’t hers.  Next to those, there appeared to be a gun.</p><p>Meanwhile, resting on the fluffy green living room couch, partially obscured by furniture and shadow, was the form of a man: tall, lean, sporting messy dark hair and what appeared to be a jacket or vest resting sloppily across his chest and dangling a little off the edge of the couch.  His arm was dangling off the couch, too, and there was a bit of fabric still twisted about his fingers.  He was either asleep or dead.</p><p>Cordelia wasn’t quite sure what she’d been expecting, but it definitely hadn’t been this.  And she was sure that, once she’d figured out precisely why this is what she’d found, she’d wish to return to a state of blissful ignorance as quickly as possible.  She liked her instinctive first guess so little that she’d rejected it before she could quite finish thinking of it.</p><p>Surely either she or someone else would have noticed if there’d been a gunshot in the room earlier that had killed this man.  This wasn’t a place where folks were inured to the sound of firearms going off.  So chances were that no one had shot him.  The remaining possibilities of what the gun might have been meant for prompted her to move quietly for the counter first.  Spying her reading armchair in the corner by the kitchen, she softly set her purse and her keys down on it.  She left her phone comfortably tucked into her single-buttoned jacket pocket.  Then she made for the weapon on the counter.</p><p>It was an old make and model of gun.  She could tell by the shape and the weight of it, and by the few details she could make out as she cautiously lifted it from the counter and turned it over in the half-light coming through the curtains.  A late-1800s pistol by the look of it.  She couldn’t be sure if it was loaded, though it felt too light to be fully loaded, at least.  Perhaps properly unloading it would be smartest, but anything of the sort would be needlessly loud if the man on the couch was, in fact, sleeping.  So she kept it in hand as she tiptoed back to the door.</p><p>At this point, the best thing she could think to do was to keep her gaze fixed on the half-familiar intruder and finally turn on the lights.  </p><p>When the lights flickered on, the figure on the couch barely stirred.  But he did visibly, audibly stir.  </p><p>It was proof that, if nothing else, he was not dead.  His chest shifted a little, casting a poorly folded mess of black fabric and lace to slide a little further towards the edge of the couch.  Resting just below the base of his neck was a phone in a tastefully bedazzled black case with an intricate skull and vine pattern on it.  The fabric in his hands was a white lace handkerchief, intertwined with a second piece of silkier white fabric - possibly a cravat?  Both looked damp, maybe with tears.  His base outfit appeared to be a white poet shirt with a daring neckline and black leather pants.  He hadn’t even bothered to take off the boots that were laced up almost to his knees.  And his face… those sunken eyes, the melancholy pout even in his sleep, the hair he had to tease into being unruly.  It was exactly what she’d hoped she wouldn’t see when she turned on the lights, and he was very definitely breathing.</p><p>This was perplexing, because he’d died in 1948.  Though at least it removed some of the sense of danger from the encounter.  Now she knew that she could take - and had taken - him in a fight, gun or no gun.</p><p>Before Cordelia thought of any good way to wake him up for a stern chat, he stirred again.  “‘S… ‘s too bright,” he mumbled, shifting away from the ceiling light and towards the edge of the couch.  “Gimme… sweet darkness...”</p><p>At which point his phone immediately tumbled onto the ground with a loud thud, and his eyes shot open.</p><p>“Good morning, Thad,” Cordelia said, subtly moving the hand holding the pistol a little behind her back.  No need to wave that in his face immediately.  “Well, evening, actually.  Aren’t you dead?”</p><p>Thad squinted and languidly brought his fist full of handkerchief and cravat up to his forehead.  “...Faye?” he half-whispered, his voice still drowsy.  “Faye, my angel?  You’ve come back to me?”</p><p>“Actually, you bumped the lock on my apartment,” she replied.  It was fortunate that she was confused and indignant enough to overpower her urge to laugh.  “And, by the looks of it, wept yourself to sleep on my couch when I wasn’t home for… for what?  Some wine and a spot of murder-suicide?”</p><p>“You wound me!” he exclaimed, dramatically rolling towards the backing of the couch until his face was mostly obscured by it.  “I just… eh, just give me a moment to… to get used to the light.”</p><p>“We both know you’re not a vampire.”</p><p>“I’ll have you know that hypersensitivity to light is a real medical issue,” he muttered into the wall of fabric and stuffing he’d pressed his face up against.  “If you didn’t have anything nice to say, why shatter my treasured slumber?”</p><p>Cordelia audibly scoffed at that despite herself.  “Maybe because you somehow tracked me down across two continents, broke into my apartment with a loaded weapon, and commandeered my couch?”</p><p>“It’s not loaded,” Thad replied.  “It’s a… think of it as a peace offering.”</p><p>A short, perplexed silence followed.  </p><p>“It’s a gun,” Cordelia eventually said, unconvinced.</p><p>Thad sighed deeply into the couch before forcing himself to slowly, deliberately roll back to a place where Cordelia could at least see an eye and part of his mouth from.  “It’s.. it’s the pistol I shot Jhandir with.  You know… back when I…”  He shuddered.</p><p>“Yes, died, I know,” Cordelia finished.  She lifted up the pistol again and took another look at it.  In the fully lit room, she could tell that the make and the model of it matched what Thad had said it was.  And it did feel light enough to perhaps be empty.  Just to make sure, she took a few moments to try safely unloading it.  Sure enough, there was nothing to unload.  “Care to start explaining?”</p><p>“I brought wine,” Thad replied flatly.</p><p>“Good for you.  Why are you in my apartment, and why are you alive to be in my apartment?”</p><p>Perhaps something about the insistent exasperation of Cordelia’s questions finally broke him, or perhaps he’d gotten sick of his own performance when he realized how long it would take to drive it home.  Whatever the case, at that, Thad still made quite a show of the monumental effort it took for him to force his weak, sorrow-wracked form into a proper sitting position on the couch.  The poet shirt was cut even more scandalously than it had appeared to be when he was lying down.  Three quarters of his hair immediately collapsed over his eyes in a soulless mockery of despair.  It had been well over half a century since the last time she’d had to deal with any of this, and yet she already found herself getting as sick of it as if he’d just pulled this yesterday.</p><p>“What if I told you,” he eventually said, staring at her through the tangle of moody brown locks with as much intensity as he could muster, “that you’re all in more danger than you could possibly know?”</p><p>Cordelia raised an eyebrow.  “Are you drunk?”</p><p>Thad shook his head emphatically.  “I haven’t been this sober in years.”</p><p>“That’s a low standard,” Cordelia snapped back.  It only took a second to see that this did some amount of genuine hurt to Thad, though.  His eyes lost some of their spark and turned downward to survey his shoes.  He said nothing.  Cordelia wasn’t sure whether she felt bad about this or not, but rather than try to puzzle it out, she asked something else: “Is this a threat?”</p><p>“No.”  Thad shook his head again, albeit with a little less zest than last time.  “It’s a warning.”  He paused and looked up to her face again.  “Dr. Massey is alive, Faye.  He’s alive, and anyone I can find, it’s because he can find them, too.”</p><p>Cordelia’s breath caught in her throat.  “Massey?”  She waited for what felt like a more than reasonable amount of time for Thad to continue, but he did not.  “Should I call Irving?” she finally asked.</p><p>The next silence felt even longer.  Cordelia began to wonder what would happen if Thad just stopped talking now and fainted back onto her couch.  She’d remembered him as being this bad, but she’d been telling herself that his sheer ridiculousness came from the kind of distortion that can act on memories colored by strong emotion.  It was somewhere between affirming and uncomfortable to see how accurate her recollections really were.  </p><p>Still, though - how easily even Thad, of all people, had found her was a special kind of troubling.  She remembered how sloppy and unplanned Thad’s lockpicking job had been.  The wine and pistol were a nice touch, but hardly the kind of big show Thad liked to put on when he felt something was really significant.  All of this reeked of being unpremeditated.  People a lot smarter than Thad had spent a very long time looking for her or for Andrew or for any one of their colleagues and never worked their way out of the maze of false leads and shifting identities.  This didn’t feel like something Thad did alone.  The thought of Massey having somehow made it simple enough for even Thaddeus Beck to find her on a moment’s notice...</p><p>And then there was the fact that Thad was alive at all.  He was undeniably himself and undeniably alive.  But she’d seen his corpse, dammit, right at the scene of the crime - if Anil was to be believed, just moments after Thad had expired.  She’d felt his cold, dead wrist and found no pulse.  She’d helped with the funeral arrangements.  So had Massey.  A decade later, she’d seen Massey’s corpse, too.</p><p>The lot of it was so troubling that Cordelia rocketed straight past the outer bounds of anxiety and into a shocked, dissonant calm.</p><p>“If you’re not lying through your teeth, Thad, and you’re not drunk, you know I have to call Irving.”</p><p>Thad let his head drop despairingly into his hands.  “Must you?”  His voice cracked with a deeply resigned anguish.</p><p>Cordelia shrugged.  Despite the dire circumstances, Cordelia took some small delight in sliding her phone out of her pocket and gravely replying, “I must.”  It was a bit easier to call Irving when the situation was unquestionably dire - and when something else about the situation was guaranteed to be more awkward than either of them.</p><p>The moment Thad heard the dialing sound, he was back on his back on the couch, faking a faint.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>